


snufkin takes acid

by sweesbees



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Drama, Drug Use, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror, Recreational Drug Use, also incest shippers fuck off, if you come into my comments i will fight you because you're all disgusting and smelly, the relationship tag is purely because it focuses on them being siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26028493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweesbees/pseuds/sweesbees
Summary: A fic where Snufkin takes acid.
Relationships: Lilla My | Little My & Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	snufkin takes acid

**Author's Note:**

> **MILD GORE/HORROR WARNING, EMETOPHOBIA WARNING, BUGS WARNING**  
>  _if you wish to skip the scene involving vomit, that is fine. just stop after the sentence “Whatever he saw would find him by the end of the night, no matter what he thought.” and jump to “A smell crawled out from behind his stinging eyes and resided in his nose.”_  
> 
> 
>   
> note: look i’ll be real with you i’ve never done a trip in my fucking life so i’m just going to write some hardcore crack fic with emphasis on crack
> 
> note: i do not necessarily condone drug use, and i do not recommend using drugs if you are under 18 or have mental illnesses or psychoses that could be affected by drugs. but, if you absolutely have your heart set on experimenting, do it in a safe, controlled area with sober people you trust. don’t go to a party and take pills from some rando. be sensible. be safe.

“What’s that?” Little My asked, curious of the tiny little squares in Snufkin’s palm.

“It’s something I got during my travels,” Snufkin replied. “They call it acid.”

“I- What?” Little My fell silent, and the commotion behind them filled the empty space. It was just the two of them, deeper in the woods, but in the clearing strings of lights hung from poles, radiating a warm glow outwards to barely touch the woods.

Mrs. Fillyjonk was hosting a party with help from the Mymble, and the party goers must admit they were a little grateful - were it not for the Mymble’s interference, the celebration would be a stale affair. But it was far from that; the valley residents enjoyed a night of wine and song. 

Even so, Snufkin found the atmosphere oppressive.

He left the party. It was a bad habit, for sure, but he did hope that Moomin would understand. He did tell him before the party that he may leave in the middle of it. He just neglected to tell him when. It was all for the best. The silly little troll would be clucking over him all night like an anxious mother hen, and he wanted to be relaxed for tonight. 

This didn’t mean he could get out of everyone’s hair. Little My, being the rapscallion she was with barely a thread of patience within her, left the party upon seeing Snufkin absent. There was something about him leaving a party that led to consequences that he would ultimately feel bad about. While she could be the bigger person and help him deal with his problems, she just had to indulge in the secrets he wanted to keep so badly from everyone, including her.

“I came across a group of wide-eyed layabouts on my travels, and they shared with me their knowledge of the universe. There are many things I want to know about it, to be true. I asked how they could ever get that information and they gave me these.” Snufkin held his palm up so Little My could inspect the squares.

“Just a bunch of bits of paper? I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think you may have gotten scammed,” Little My uttered incredulously.

“It looks like that, but this is just the vessel that is used to transport the acid into my body. Once I stick this on my tongue, I will be able to unlock the recesses of my mind and focus until the universe is mine.”

“Sounds like a lot of hogwash to me,” Little My replied. “But stranger things have happened, I guess.”

“Thank you, Little My.” At this, he took one of the squares and stuck it onto the fingertip of his index finger. What Little My said to him was not exactly reassuring. What if this was just the work of some young hooligans trying to get a laugh? What exactly was on that piece of paper? But in his life, he knew the best way through an obstacle was not to shy away from it. Instead, the only way to be sure of what was ahead was to go forward. 

With Little My’s eyes on him, Snufkin opened his mouth and let his tongue roll forward. A shiver ran down his spine, but he kept strong. This was just the drive to keep him going; this is what proved he was alive. With careful precision, he kept the square balanced on his finger long enough to let it touch his tongue. Electricity radiated out from his fingers all the way up to his head, returning the warmth of a good decision. The feeling dissipated as soon as he retracted his tongue and closed his mouth. 

Now was the most crucial part of the trip. Snufkin would just have to relax with the blotter on his tongue. His back felt the soft peeling bark of a strong tree that had seen centuries on this earth. It was just perfect to keep him grounded. Rolling his head back, he looked up to the sky, making sure to keep the concentration of acid on his tongue.

“What now?”

“They said it’ll be a while before it takes,” Snufkin said, eyes closed in consideration. “You can go back to the party. I might just stay here where it’s safe.” At this, Little My stood up and put her paws on her hips.

“No way,” she immediately replied. “The party’s turning rather dull. I better stay and see what happens.” Her smirk and lowered eyelids gave a feeling of smugness, but anyone could tell that a mymble like her had got bitten by the curiosity bug. Whatever those goons were selling him on his travels, she knew that it would either be something world shattering, or something that would make a fool of her brother. There was no way she would just leave an affected Snufkin in the woods at the mercy of the night. 

Like a candle, the energy of the party flickered away as it slowly and pitifully melted its wax down to the wick. Neither Snufkin or Little My were counting minutes, but it had to be at least half an hour. The party had certainly taken on a more mellow appearance, as the conversations grew faint and the jazz music playing on the gramophone became the most dominant form of noise. 

Snufkin’s focus on the night sky blurred. He could swear he was feeling his eyes pulse. With every heartbeat, his eyeballs would grow and shrink, and the vibrations against his eyelids radiated to his brain in the form of an audible heart rate. His pupils were starting to itch, as blood vessels worked overtime to keep his eyes open. All sensation in his body was moving to his eyes as they took in the majesty of the cosmos that he could see above the growth of the woods.

Faint streams among the stars coalesced into a more visible stream of colour. As far as the night sky was above him, he swore he could hear faraway sky tramps leaping from one patch of sky to another. The trails sounded like jingling bells mixed with a whoosh of wind. If one of them were to fall from the sky and grace his presence, he would want nothing more than to tip his hat and thank them for their service. Maybe they would take him away and let him live among the stars to become one of them. 

Wanting to get a better look, he pulled up the brim of his hat just slightly to get a better look. Something zoomed past his eyes and landed on his nose in a splash, and it made him grimace. The sky was crying. Rain was falling from the sky, all because he dared to look too close. Fat drops hit the ground and soaked the earth. The dirt underneath his feet smelled like wet leaves and moss.

“Shoot, it’s raining,” Snufkin cursed, tugging down on both sides of the brim of his hat. Little My held a paw out, and as she caught a falling raindrop, it momentarily caught on fire.

“What do you mean? It’s dry as a bone,” she said. How funny that as soon as she said that, her paw would start to melt off! Falling in droplets like the rain above, bits of the skin and muscle of her paw dripped away, revealing the bone underneath.

Snufkin shut his eyes and curled up, not wanting to see his sister with a missing extremity. When he opened his eyes, the rain had ceased and Little My’s paw was once again intact. Oh ho, now this was interesting. 

The music from the party snaked its way through the trees, shooting off little musical notes from its back. The notes floated towards Snufkin’s ears, getting louder and louder, but now that it had jumped off the back of its snaking mother, the notes were starting to go sour and die within his eardrums. Slowly, but surely, every note of the jazzy tunes became mush in his ears, complete with thudding bass that made his brain hurt. He clasped the sides of his head and groaned in pain.

“Gotta…. get out of here…..” Snufkin grumbled, trying to find his footing on the slippery ground. As more notes popped in his skull, he could feel slimy residue on his tongue, coating it in the terrible taste of music. 

“What now?” Little My’s question cut through the fuzz like a sharp blade. Her voice somehow kept him grounded enough to avoid completely succumbing to the gramophone’s taunting melody. 

“The music… It’s hurting me…” Ashamedly, Snufkin turned away and tried to crawl to find sanctuary from the torture.

“Quit being such a baby,” Little My scolded, punctuating her sentence with a hiss of breath. “Come on, let’s just go back to the party. I’m sure Moomin would love to see you like this.” 

“No!” he cried, turning back to yell at Little My. Again, she was transformed. Her newly formed serpentine eyes stared coldly into his. Slitted pupils sat on top of amber sclera, and he could see within her eyes to see something else. Someone else. Someone that was staring right at him. He did not want to look any further. Whatever was in her eyes, she could have it. In the meantime, all Snufkin could do was scoot away on his behind, trying to get momentum in his body before he could get away for good. There was nothing to be gained from being in the woods anymore. He had to get somewhere safe.

Snufkin was back to crawling on his knees and paws. Each paw he planted firmly on the ground, for he was far too scared of what would happen should the forest floor give way. The crunch of leaves under his paws resonated with a loud crack, and he could feel every shake of the slam through the bones in his arm. Contact with the ground started explosions of fire around his paws that faded like a miniature fire show. 

He kept his head low and his eyes mostly shaded by the brim of his hat. If he saw Little My’s face again, he would not know what to do. Thinking about the monster in her eyes filled him with dread. While it was possible that her face would be back to normal, he did not want to run the risk of seeing it again. A twinge of uneasiness twisted his stomach, and as much as he wanted to be wrong, he was delaying the inevitable. Whatever he saw would find him by the end of the night, no matter what he thought.

Something caught in his mouth. He became aware of his tongue, which sat lump in his mouth, like a fat moist larvae. Slowly, he became more aware of everything within his mouth. He could feel every part of the deep cavern of his mouth, each area becoming slick with warm, frothing saliva. The faint taste of metal seeped out from his gums as he felt how rotten his teeth were. Even with open eyes, he could sense nothing more than his mouth, as it opened and grew hot with panting breath. 

The larvae tumbled out of his mouth, along with a steady stream of strong smelling foul liquid. His system was purging itself, and as his body shuddered and buckled, the flood came forth. As it hit the ground, it pooled and absorbed into the ground, turning it black with ash. In his mouth, he could feel bits of solid matter passing through. It mixed with the thick liquid, now chunky with whatever material was being rejected by his body.

The liquid was done, but he still felt the aftershocks throughout his whole body. He was reduced to coughing as his body was trying to get something larger than himself out. It would either have to come out, or stay inside him, running the risk of having it block his windpipe and him slowly choking to death. No option appealed to him, but time was running out. The coughs started to taste like rusted pennies in his mouth, and spurts of glistening ruby blood were staining the ground, remaining visible for him to see.

In desperation, Snufkin, with sheathed claws, grabbed at his jaw and pried it open. Fire spread through his joints, and his skin stretched over breaking bone. But try as he may, his mandible refused to part from his skull. He gasped for whatever air he could get into his pitiful lungs and readied his arms. On a good day, Snufkin could push boulders his size out of the way with all his force in order to work his way out of jams or explore hidden areas. This would have to be as good of a day as he could make it. 

With a loud resounding scream that bounced off every tree to come right back to his ears, Snufkin pulled down, sinking his claws deep into his gums. Over the echoes of his screams came the sounds of ripping skin, snapping bones, and a gurgling coming from deep inside him slowly getting louder and louder. He pulled his jaw further and further down, as the tear ran down his face to his neck to his chest. Whatever was inside him was about to come out, waiting for the time to strike.

Out it tumbled: a strange, misshapen blob of pulsating black, with waves bubbling over the skin. All Snufkin could do was stare at the cocoon, which, just moments ago, had taken residence within its body and grown too big for him to contain within his ribs. His body became alien, a ghost, its own void. Black goo dropped from the phantom wound that had healed itself up after being so rudely pried open. 

The blob-being roused, moving what appeared to be its head. A large snout pressed against the stretched skin, and two ears stood up on its head, twitching for sound. Snufkin shuffled south, standing unsteady. The snout wrinkled and pushed on the membrane covering it, until it popped out of a tear, white and pure. Snufkin felt washed over by a deluge of relief. His friend Moomin was here, at last! He would be able to calm his racing heart and keep him grounded as the world tried to rid itself of him.

The cocoon tore open more and more, but the slimy snout dropped to the ground. The moomin creature was exhausted in its attempts to free itself from casing which kept it trapped inside. Its drive was fading right in front of Snufkin’s eyes, from which tears were starting to flow. In his haste, he dug his claws into the soft leathery membrane, tearing it open with ease. The more he pulled away at the skin, the more of the slimy limp body was starting to fall out. For his lack of patience and his fear of the worst, Snufkin was gifted a fully grown stillborn, immobile moomintroll who had no life in its wide open eyes. 

He couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop looking at me like that!” he shrieked. He shielded his eyes and moved away from the fish-eyed corpse, kept in stasis by the slime that was slowly drying out. Violently he sobbed, rocking back and forth in his spot. He pulled down his hat to cover all but his mouth, and the material of his old hat scratched at his skin like sandpaper. His bones creaked. The wind whistled between the crowding trees, giving an audience to the spectacle in front of them.

But the moomintroll was calling to him like a siren call. He couldn’t keep his eyes away.

As Snufkin’s pupils browsed over the troll, his mouth reflexively opened with drool dribbling down. A new hunger awoke in his empty stomach, full of an acidic soup that roiled and bubbled over the protective barrier keeping it all in one place. The pangs radiated out into his chest, where the beast had sprung from. Snufkin’s body wanted to feast; it wanted the moomin back inside him to fester and decay. He couldn’t help it. He was so hungry...

“NO!” he cried, springing to his feet and running from the scene. The jackhammer that was his heart pounded in the empty cavern of his ribs. The hunger burst from his stomach, crawling in his belly like a spider, up and down his body. He could feel a chill with every inch the sensation climbed. Needles were poking his body from the inside, and he did not like the feeling. Now that his legs were in motion, he could not stop running. The trees bent and bowed to his will, ensuring his passage through the darkening wood. 

A smell crawled out from behind his stinging eyes and resided in his nose. It was the smell of sulfur, of brimstone, of hell. His internal thermometer was witnessing a threatening rise in mercury. One hundred degrees. Five hundred degrees. Ten thousand degrees. His body trembled under the impact of a rush of thermal change. His heart was a desert, dry and begging for anything to quench its thirst. It wheezed with what it was pumping through his veins, which may as well have been a thick bubbling stream of iron. Sweat clung to the inside of his shirt and coat, and his forehead was drenched with liquid that could not be inside him. If he didn’t know any better, he could swear that he was roasting in hell.

Violent shrieking blasted in his face as he found his way out of the wood into a scrambled bunch of lines, all rebounding off each other in speeds he had never seen before. There was no floor in front of him, and images popped in and out at a rapid pace. It was almost as if he had walked off the face of the earth into a glitch where everything was screaming at him and every image was rearranged in front of his eyes. He saw his mother, the Mymble, with one eye shifted to cover the whole of her face and her arm copy pasted on top of her head, but only for a short second as more images whizzed past his eyes. He was staring into the vacuum of time.

Then it all came to a halt. The screaming, the misshapen images, everything. Snufkin had returned to the void. If he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn that he just died. What a terrifying thought. The idea of conscious thought after death and having to spend eternity in the void with nothing to do would drive him insane. For his own sake, he at least hoped he was alive.

The smell of hell came back. Oh no. Oh _God_.

If he had to imagine where he was at the moment, he was probably standing just outside the wood with Moominhouse on the other side of the river. But he was wrong. Oh dear hell was he wrong. 

Pigs squealed as cloaked figures held them down. They stood with blood on their black masks, but they appeared as if they were hemulens, studying the creatures they tortured. They ignored Snufkin as they snapped bone. Volcanic ash blanketed the valley, obscuring crawling herds of bugs as they carpeted what was once the grass. They feasted on the grass and dust and left nothing but their screaming maggoty offspring, left writhing and blind. 

Down came the fire spirits, raining from the top of the mountain. Snufkin cowered as they landed around him in a perfect formation. Instead of extinguishing, as they do when hitting water, they exploded as if the bugs on the ground were gasoline. He got caught in the fire as it burned and licked at his skin. He looked back up, trying to search for Moominhouse. His gut told him he was close, and he could find it like ships see lighthouses, but nothing stood tall. All he could see was ash, and bugs, and hemulens tormenting pigs. 

His eyes glanced over the bridge, the gilded bridge that led to Moominhouse on just the other side. The bridge looked more rickety than normal and the whole bridge was surely covered in brambles. As much as the prospect of crossing the bridge upset him, Snufkin could no longer stay on the side he was on. Faster than he had ever sprinted, he took off and ran for the bridge. As he got closer, the bridge got further and further. It moved away faster than he could run for it. He wailed as he gave up, falling to his knees. A lone fire spirit landed from the sky, and hit the bridge. It caught on fire which spread in a matter of milliseconds, and it turned to cinders just as fast. He could not use that bridge any more.

The hemulens had finished with the pigs, tossing their broken bodies to the ground with a thud. One of them sniffed at the air, and looked around a bit before catching a waft of the smell of sticky sweat. They shuffled forward, unsure of themselves. It was almost as if they were blind, and had to operate on other senses to lead them towards their prey. Eight hemulens moved in closer and closer, their dresses scraping along the ground and melting into the fire. As they got closer, he could see rusty nails driven into where the eyes of the hemulens would be. The masked figures moved in an arc, obscuring the bridge and giving Snufkin only one venue of escape: the way he came in.

In a fit of cowardice, Snufkin stumbled back into the uninviting and unwelcoming woods, colliding his arms with the trunks that rudely shook their fists at him. The path dropped down and Snufkin ran along the trench. It enveloped him, and he felt as if he was running through the belly of a snake. The sounds of a heavy drum resonated within the woods, but the sound was rather odd. It sounded less like the rhythmic beating of drumsticks to tanned hide and more like the sound of someone throwing their body weight onto a large animal. 

In the woods he found another congregation of strange creatures. They were small beings whose shapes could not conform to the euclidean plane. All of the creatures danced around a brilliant iridescent bonfire. Each whip of the flames held strange, welcoming colours, unlike any fire he had seen before. For once, Snufkin felt at home. This was what he wanted to see on his trip. Never mind the trees melting around him and the creatures whose heads(?) morphed and grew, this was what he wanted to unlock in his mind.

Snufkin held a paw out to touch the very edge of the heat, and it burned hot like nothing he had ever felt before. Even with his temperature soaring high, it could not match the heat of the fire. It felt as if he was about to touch the sun, or a comet at its highest velocity. His paws started to singe a little, but he pushed forward, wanting to be enveloped in the beauty of the fire. But that posed an important question. Would he burn to escape the fear of the unknown and enter warmth? Was he willing to leave behind a scary and unsure world and leave the people he knew behind to seek an isolated life in a world where he knew everything? This was the thought that kept his paw frozen in place, neither advancing, nor receding. The answer could go either way. 

From the top of the trees came an all too familiar moan. A chorus of such moans followed, and Snufkin’s heart turned ice cold in a way that he could never imagine in his life. The colorful flames retreated from him, slinking from his paw and collapsing to the ground to leave nothing but charred logs. His portal had gone, but the calls from the woods left him shaken and petrified. He could not move. Ice spread from the furthest reaches of the trees, all in formation, until they met in the middle like a snowflake.

What Snufkin saw next was something he expected, but not in the same presentation.

Above the highest trees lifted the head of the Groke. She stood proud and tall, much more large and monstrous than anything he had ever seen. He did not like being a small snufkin staring into the eyes of a 50 foot tall Groke. Her moans rumbled over the tops of the trees and down along the ground, spreading cones of ice in every direction. Her gigantic head tilted down to catch sight of the little insignificant worm. Snufkin returned the glance to stare up at the skyscraper of terror above his head.

The Groke had massive eyes. Often, they hung in the empty darkness of her face like two pearls on a string, each with a small dot for a pupil. But now, they were each a boulder, coloured in a chilling expanse of white. They glowed in the night sky, giving the moon two more satellites with which to become acquainted. The visage of the Groke never ceased to terrify. Her long and heavy nose cast a shadow, hiding Snufkin from the shimmer of the moon. He never thought it could get any darker than the dark of the night, but standing in the shadow of the Groke made him reconsider. From there, he could see her teeth. Dear God, her teeth. A row of faded ivory tombstones stood in her mouth. Puffs of visible air came in and out from her mouth, and the leaves of the trees were shrivelling from the cold.

Her body was another matter. The flow of her form merged into the trees, giving the illusion of a phantom travelling among the crowded woods. Two large hands phased through the wide trunks, each one easily spanning the width of five trees. Her fingers were gnarled to form arcs, and the tips of each finger ended in a razor sharp claw, gleaming wickedly in the moonlight. From the deep indigo of her hands to the obsidian of the rest of the form, the Groke was a malevolent marvel, making the mumrik minuscule. 

A bellowing chorus heralded the arrival of more terror. One, two, three, four, five more Grokes raised their heads above the trees, encircling and ensnaring poor little Snufkin in their web of ice. Clouds of white mist blanketed his lower half, and icicles crept up to touch his boots. The trees themselves looked to be coated in prisms of ice as the Groke congregation phased through each tree within the wood. Nothing registered as a forest anymore. It was all a hollow den of mist, crystal, and cold. 

The five Grokes on the outer ring of the crystalline forest shuffled in closer to meet their sister. With every increase in proximity to Snufkin that the Grokes came within, more ice started to form on his person. They ran up the length of his legs, and flakes of ice crept up his belly. The flames he wanted to enter were now trapping him in a formation of their binary opposite. The Grokes hummed along with a haunting melody, unlike any refrain his sober mind could think. While not discordant, the notes filled his whole body with despair. These icy creatures were advancing on him and no one was here to help. No one was going to help. And his empty heart had no will to ask for anyone. 

Six mammoth Grokes stood around Snufkin, obscuring any path out of the ice woods. All he could see of the trees were faint glimmers of the white moon off the edge of the deep navy blue of the ice. All of the trees were to give majesty to the Groke and her entourage. The moon’s light turned into a strong beam, shooting down past the head of the warden of the ice prison straight into Snufkin’s eyes. He screamed and tried to shield his eyes from the taunting beam, but his movements stuttered. It felt as if his very body was simulated movement, and the program was glitching. What he was doing was forbidden by the program. He had to look at the light and let it blind him, but whatever was left of his free will was trying to run.

The leader of the Grokes moved forward, very slowly. Her gargantuan body buckled forward, and her mouth opened, ready to take in her prey. Snufkin’s legs flailed against the ice in what space was granted by the crystal jail. He bent forward, only able to move from his chest, but he hoped whatever he could do would be enough to crack the ice. The melody got louder, and the surrounding Grokes started to chuckle. The melody got louder, and the surrounding Grokes turned their chuckles into chortles. The melody got louder, and the surrounding Grokes broke into full guffaws. Snufkin’s misery was amusing to them, and their laughs made a bitter harmony to the procession of the notes and chords of the frigid forest.

Those rows of ivory stones came closer and closer, ready to envelop Snufkin in what could very well be his death. His mind was going haywire, trying to process what part of the occurrences were hallucinations, and what was really happening. For all he knew, there could be a Groke larger than any other groke he had seen. He could not even register his own existence. He could not feel his heart beating or his own breath from his lips. Was he even alive? He could be in limbo. He could be in hell. He could be dead. He must have died at least three times during the trip; what was one more death in the trip of his final moments?

The mouth of the Groke closed in on Snufkin, and her very skin started to melt, dropping to the ground in great thuds of black ooze. The puddles could swallow him up like a tsunami, if the inside of her mouth did not reach him first. Her teeth passed his vision, and he could see the inner chasm. If the forest was black with only a few touches of white, Snufkin was now staring into the vantablack. All light was gone from his eyes, and from his figure. Being temporarily blinded by the beam of the silvery moon did not make the transition from bright to bleak easier. The mouth of the Groke was absorbing the light from his body, plunging him into nothing.

With a loud swipe of her massive jaws, the Groke snapped up Snufkin in a flash. But he did not fall. He was still standing, but there was no floor. His body was no longer frozen, but he was not free to move. What should have been swallowing him up with great hostility was instead keeping him hanging in the balance of the void. He was back in the void.

In an instant, a light switched on in the void and left him in the spotlight. 

Snufkin was alone here. He could hear nothing but his own heart beating with haste in his barren chest. The sound of blood thrumming in his ears was making him dizzy. There was nowhere for him to go. There was nothing for him to do. There was no stimuli, whether it be heat, air, or anything for his body to even react to.

But he was alive. He was sure of this much.

The silence left Snufkin with nothing to hear but the insides of his own body at work, heating up and regulating his organs. He started to hear his lungs filling with air… or was it even air? He could hear his stomach turn brine over and over within itself. He could hear his ligaments in his fingers snap as he flexed his fingers. He could hear his veins carry whatever it was that was keeping him alive. The anechoic properties of Snufkin’s confinement were breaking his mind to the point where he could hear his nose sniffle and the slow run of tears down his nose.

This was it. This was his chamber. It was built for him. It was made for no one else but him. The only person who even deserved to reside in this chamber was him.

His ears had now gotten used to hearing nothing but himself. 

His body had now gotten used to standing by itself.

His brain had now gotten used to having nothing but its own thoughts to subsist on.

But this was not enough for the angry void of the chamber. 

Immediately, the volume inside the chamber went from negative decibels to hundreds of decibels. Snufkin felt his ears burst, and he fell to his knees from the loss of equilibrium. The light above changed in no longer than a picosecond to a glitch filled mess of static around him. In among the sound of pure force, he could hear high pitched screams from voices never heard before. It came from all angles, pummelling his body with sonic torture. 

He did not want to look into the march of time. He did.

He could see everything on the back of his eyelids. Open, closed, it didn’t make a difference.

Moomin, or Moominmamma, or even some other moomintroll he met on his travels, appeared in his vision for a split second. He/she/they had their eyes gouged out and replaced with marbles that fit perfectly in the sockets.

Joxter, his father (he knew it was Joxter, for better or for worse) appeared, hunched over. His tongue was covered in cat fur and needles.

A whomper, maybe Too-Ticky, had arms growing out of a gaping black hole in her stomach. Half her body was swapped from bottom to top. 

Large eyes watched over him. These did not change as the static and glitching changed over and over, from various things. He saw the Lonely Mountains covered in an avalanche of stones. He saw creepers like Teety-Woo without their heads; they were not violently decapitated, they were only decapitated by the glitches. Snufkin saw everything. He saw the worst of everything. His quest for knowledge of everything led him to the knowledge of everything. It was on him for ignoring how the nature of knowledge is a double edged sword. Now he was getting only one edge, and it was the edge that was cutting into him with his callous abandonment with the world around him.

He had a thousand eyes, each taking in a horrible fate that could befall those he held close to his closed off heart. He had a thousand ears, each hearing a drum beat and discordant shriek, combined with squelches, shattering glass, and the most alarming sounds of the world around him. He had the sensitivity of a thousand creatures, for only a minute ago he was feeling nothing and now he was feeling everything. The worst part about it all was he was the only person in the glitch. He was defective. He was broken. 

He was nowhere in a room with no one but himself.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed a saviour. He needed help. He cried out for the serpent lady with the monster in her eye. Even this was more preferable than the solitude that the universe had planned for him. No matter what was in the eye, he at least preferred to see an actual monster, rather than have his mind be the monster.

“Little My! HELP ME!” he pathetically cried out, hoping that his voice would break through the void. His voice became a million, cutting through the shrieks and pops of static all around him. The sounds sliced through with their claws, fighting against this new disruption of sound. A war was happening around Snufkin, and both audio and visual were fighting against one another for control over what got to torture him with the presence of those that meant something to him. His vision went red, to mimic the dress of who he called out for.

His voice echoed back. Now, it was taunting him. He could hear a whole choir of Snufkins, taunting him with his anguished cry, chanting it over and over. He couldn’t see them. He could only hear them. He could only hear himself.

Inside, he felt the pain of knowing that no one heard him.

Snufkin could feel something from behind, inching up on him from feet away. It was a large, heavy, bleak hand of isolation, pulling itself along the ground by its fingers. The eyes in the back of his mind tried to perceive its shape, but he was having trouble. All he could tell was the hand to drag him away for good. The closer it moved toward him, the more he felt torn between trying to scream for help again and giving up and surrendering to isolation. And the side that wanted to retreat into solitude was winning.

The hand whipped into the air, grabbed his shoulder tightly and whisked him around. It was there where he saw Little My. She was back to normal. No eye monster, no burnt paw, nothing. It was her, as he had seen her before his trip. Snufkin had trouble believing his own eyes, for she was only visible in two of them. What shocked him was, in this cacophonic abyss of glitch and sound, Little My was a constant. Now Snufkin was done with running. It was time for him to trust those willing to help him.

“You found me! Oh, thank heavens.” Snufkin dropped to his knees and clutched the mymble. At this point, he accepted that he was no longer himself. He just found the one truly good thing in this trip and he didn’t want it to go away. The monster in her eye had gone, and he did not want to ponder where it was or what it was. 

“Come on. We’ll get you back to Moominhouse.” Little My’s voice was warm, calming, and the first genuine thing he heard that night. Seeing her was a comfort to his mind, for she was big enough and strong enough to fight his delusions. Her presence alone was keeping the glitch tamed. It could not swallow her up. She refused to let it have its way.

The void retreated as the woods parted. The trees were composed of root, trunk, branch and leaf, appearing as it had before. The Groke was no longer around, if she was ever even here. The forest was not ice, or covered in ash, or wrapping around him. It existed just as it had before. While Snufkin’s eyes saw movement from the trees and a few misplaced colours, it was nowhere near the pandemonium he had only just recently bare witness to. He was starting to come down.

Little My lead Snufkin out of the woods by the paw. It had gotten too dark to see quite clearly - how long was that trip? - but with a lantern in tow, Little My made the perfect guide for wayward souls. While she kept walking, her brother stumbled over his feet, almost losing his hat in the process. As much as she wanted to make sure that he was keeping up, she knew that he would be given hell for being out all night, so she kept moving.

Once they reached the edge of the woods, Snufkin and Little My took the bridge over the river to reach Moominhouse. He trembled, his eyes still registering strange phantom objects in his peripherals. She kept him moving up the path until they reached the door. While he stood and tried to keep steady, Little My put an ear to the door, trying to determine any moving about before deciding it was safe to haul Snufkin inside.

It was a good thing for both of them that they could just climb the stairs and reach the first floor to find a guest room for Snufkin to rest for the night. Little My got behind him and started to push him up the stairs, not wanting to wait for him to perform the necessary locomotion himself. His body leaned over backwards until his paw managed to grasp the rail. Now it was harder to push him up without forcing him to let go of the railing. Despite all these hindrances, the two stumbling siblings made it up the stairs.

At the top of the staircase was a door, which they both knew lead to a guest room. Little My set down the lantern and checked if there were any occupants by listening closely for any snuffles or snores. Then she opened the door. Thankfully, for their sake, there was no one in the room and no one in the bed. Little My guided Snufkin to the bed and set her lantern on the bedside table, not bothering with lighting a candle. Once he was in the bed, she hopped on the edge of the bed.

“There you are, you dolt,” Little My said with care. “Do you need me to get you anything?”

“Just a glass of water would be nice,” Snufkin replied, smacking his dry lips.

The mymble shuffled off, leaving the lantern in the room as she bravely wandered into the dark in search of some water. Every part of Snufkin’s body was exhausted, if not bruised in one way or another. His legs felt petrified in stone, and now that he was laying down, he could not move an inch. Sleep stole him into an empty dreamless passage of time, and thankfully, his brain allowed him a few hours of sleep.

He woke up to a bright morning filtering in through curtains poorly drawn over the window. He certainly did not feel much better than he was before he slept. With clammy paws, he tried to reach for the bedside table, hoping to find a glass of water that he could drink. He found it hard to grasp, and he was distracted by the sweat drops dried to his forehead. His whole body felt shaky, and in a final attempt to swipe at the glass, he tipped it over. Water splashed onto the ground, and a flash of red tried to save the glass before it fell.

“Y-you’re still here?” Snufkin asked the blur that was his sister.

“Couldn’t let you sleep alone. I came back to find you conked out so I just put the glass there or you to drink later. Smooth move, bro.”

Little My set the glass up on the bedside table as best she could and hopped back onto the foot of the bed, staring over Snufkin. “Sheesh, you look like you fell down a cliff and landed in the bushes,” she mocked. Snufkin didn’t notice what she was saying. He was just staring at the empty glass, wanting his eyes to focus on something stationery.

“Not much happened, right?” he finally asked her.

“Uh, you threw up then ran into the woods.” Little My shrugged, giving him an apprehensive stare. “Don’t know what happened to you, but I know you. You know how to get out of a situation like that. Or that’s what I thought before you called out my name. You’re just lucky I couldn’t sleep.” 

Snufkin sat up, leaning forward and finally focusing on his sister. He was tired, and he just hoped that the meddlesome Moomins would at least be nice enough to let him rest.

“You didn’t tell anyone about this, right?” 

“Not a soul,” Little My gave a wink and a finger raised to her mouth. This was not exactly reassuring; you couldn’t trust her as far as you could throw her, and she could be thrown very far indeed. Exhausted and still feeling like he had been pummeled, Snufkin lay back on the damp and sweaty pillow, smelling of mumrik and desperation. Neither of them spoke, but Little My moved around the room, readjusting the bed and opening the curtains to get fresh sunlight in the room.

“So, what do you want to do today?” she finally asked, hopping back onto the bed.

“I have some cards in my sack. Maybe we could play a few rounds of poker,” Snufkin offered. Just as he said that, the door creaked open wider and wider. Nausea turned his insides, and ice prickled through his skin. While he could handle Moominpappa just fine and he’d be sure to explain himself to Moominmamma, seeing Moomin would put him in a position where he would have to come clean. He was hoping to do it when he was feeling more well and less rundown, but fate had a funny way of working its charm.

“Snufkin? Can I come in?” came the pure voice that gave him pause. He looked from the door to Little My and kept his glance on her. What was he to do? Her expression said very little. That was fair. She did not have to explain herself. Steadying himself and gulping whatever was in his mouth into his throat, he cleared it and hoped that he sounded as clear as ever.

“Of course, Moomin,” he replied as chipper as he could get while feeling sticks of guilt tear up his mouth.

The door creaked open more, and the white snout pushed through the crack as Moomin slowly entered. It was now or never. Snufkin would have to be honest and open. He looked terrible and felt abysmal, and there was no way to hide it from him, especially now that he was already here. The door pushed open, and the soft fair feet of Moomin walked in, one right after the other, until he was standing on the other side of the room. His eyes were wide open from what he was seeing: a dishevelled, sleep deprived Snufkin, trembling in bed.

“What on earth happened to you?” Moomin cried, advancing forward and running to the bed. 

Little My sensed the tension of the room was starting to shift and that she was no longer needed. “I’m out of here. Just yell if you need anything, Snuf,” she said as she shuffled off the bed and wandered out of the room. His lifeline was gone. His constant that he had during the night which kept him grounded was no longer here to help him face the music.

“Um, well,” Snufkin muttered. How do you start this? He couldn’t find the right words to use to help ease Moomin into the events of the previous night.

“I know that you were gone from the party halfway through,” Moomin started. “That’s all I know, really. I would be grateful if you filled in the gaps. Part of me was scared you may have walked a bit too far and met with a monster and that I’d never see you again!” The tone of his words were relief mixed with a prolonged sense of anxiety that had been pervading him the whole night. Snufkin, for the moment, tried to treat the scenario with brevity.

“That’s ridiculous, Moomin. You know there aren’t any monsters in Moominvalley,” he said with a light chuckle. Moomin let out a little sigh. It may have sounded like a chuckle, but he hoped that it was loosening him up a little. 

“I suppose. But one can never know! Weird things happen,” Moomin replied with a swing of his leg. Snufkin watched him, hoping to find the moment where Moomin was most at ease. “So what did happen? Was it a wild adventure?” 

Snufkin gave a smile to his friend. “You could say that.” He rolled his shoulders back and took a deep breath to calm what nerves of his were still fluttering in his body. “So after I left the party, I sat by myself for a while, and then I decided that I should try something different. So…” Snufkin closed his eyes, hoping to find the point of peace that would keep himself and his friend from panicking. “I did some acid.”

Moomin’s whole expression changed. His body rocked back, and his glistening pupils shrunk in the small beams of the sun. His stance went rigid, and his ears and tail shot up to the sky. If he was not already alabaster white, his skin would have turned pale underneath the fine coat of his fur. It was clear that Moomin knew more than what Snufkin thought he did, and now he could not offer him the sanitised explanation of what happened.

“You did _what?!_ ” Moomin shrieked.

“Now hear me out-”

“I don’t want to hear another word!” Moomin cut him off. His white face went red and his chest fur puffed out. “You left the party, and that I can forgive. But _leaving a party so you can try something that does who knows WHAT to your brain?_ ” 

Now Snufkin was frustrated. He had his reasons for not saying anything, as flimsy as they may be. “If I made you worried, it could have made the trip worse because then I’d be tense.”

“How much worse could it have gotten?! Do you not realise you could have really _hurt yourself_?” Moomin was acting incredulously, but his concern was slipping in as he sniffled his snout.

“Moomin, I didn’t get hurt. Acid isn’t supposed to hurt. I’m fine.”

“I don’t call ‘being so affected by hallucinations that you go into a state of fear’ being _fine_ ! You might think it’s just a normal night but it _kills_ me to see you like this! Where did you even get it?!”

Snufkin hunched his shoulders, then rolled them back again. “It was during my travels. I stopped by a mountain path and found a bunch of idlers who enriched me with everything they knew. I asked them how I could see what they saw, and then they gave me the acid.”

Moomin’s anger turned to a simmer. “And it never occurred to you, from when they gave it to you to when you took it, that they could have been lying to you and hiding the worst of what could have happened from you? Did you honestly think a bunch of _strangers_ were worth trusting?”

“It wasn’t that bad-”

“ _I heard you screaming in the woods!_ ” Moomin yelled. Snufkin’s bitter indifference was starting to get under his skin. “I wanted to find you but I quickly got lost. I had no idea where you had even gone. I had to return home, but I was sick with worry the whole night! There are only so many times I can accept that you’re big enough and strong enough to be able to do it alone.”

“But taking the acid was my choice. I had an idea of what the risks were, and I accepted it. There was no point involving you when you didn’t need to be involved.”

“Didn’t need to be? You left the party without a word! And then you refused to tell me the full of what happened! I had to hear it from Little My!” Moomin’s paws gripped until his knuckles could be seen quite clearly. “I wouldn’t be half as frustrated as I am now if you just _talked_ to me, Snufkin!”

The mumrik lowered his head, his eyes covered by the shadow of his hair. “I told you, at the start of the party, that I may need some time alone.”

“That’s fine, but I assumed that you would stay safe when you were alone, _AND_ that you wouldn’t be lost and terrified in the woods! Shame on me for assuming, I suppose, but I would’ve appreciated you saying _something_. Anything! How was I to know that you would be torturing yourself with visual nightmares and making yourself sick?”

“You’re not entitled to know what I do with my time,” Snufkin retorted. There were many things he would never tell Moomin about. The near-death experiences on his south travels were numerous, but he never had any need to tell Moomin about them. After all, they were in the past, and there was nothing Moomin could have done to save him.

“But don’t you think I _should_ be?!” Moomin rocked back on his heels, his fury seemingly gone. Now that his anger was burnt out, all that was left was the chilling anguish. “I _care_ about you, Snufkin. I want you to be okay. I get very upset if anything bad happens to you. _You mean so much to me_ , but it feels like you don’t give me any respect.”

Snufkin shuddered at this. What came out of his mouth was not something he wanted to say from the heart, but a pitiful attack that came from a damaged ego. “Don’t be like that, Moomin. Please.”

“Please _nothing_ !” The white hot rage came back, burning like the fires Snufkin had seen hours ago. “Friendship and companionship is a two way street! I may not be able to stop you from going where you want to go, but you can’t stop me caring about you, _especially_ when you’re giving yourself hell! And if you can’t at least respect me enough to put me at ease… then I don’t know if our friendship can recover from this.”

In his mind, Snufkin had already loaded up his catapult with small stones and slings at Moomin’s very character, but the last sentence stopped him from pulling the lever. He could feel the hand of isolation return again from the shadow of the recesses of his mind. It rested one heavy finger on his shoulder, having crawled up his back without him feeling it. He couldn’t go there again. Not now. Not ever.

Then came Snufkin’s weak plea. “I’m… I’m sorry. I really am.” His heart broke, and he felt like crying too. What he thought was a solid foundation that stood for years was in reality just a lovesick troll who was slowly gaining the courage to outgrow it. “I really should have thought about you and how you felt. It may have been a lot safer if I knew you knew about it. Maybe I would have had some help. And it definitely would have helped you. I know what I did was stupid and inconsiderate and I should have said something. The most I can do now is get better.”

Moomin stood silent. His eyes crinkled at the side, his pupils losing the shimmer that one would see when the light from the window caught his wide open eyes. The ruff that stood out on his neck and chest had puffed back down. When Snufkin tried to look into his eyes, Moomin averted his gaze, and the tidal wave of guilt crashed down. There was no use in the mumrik getting out of bed and trying to advance to physically comfort the poor troll. The distance between the two of them had locked him up and threw away the key. It was Snufkin’s own better judgement that kept him from trying to escape that imprisonment.

After what felt like an hour in Snufkin’s still warped perception of time, the silence was broken. “I just…” Moomin sighed heavily, swallowing down stones into his gut. “I’ll talk to you about it later. For now, please leave me alone.” Turning on his heel, Moomin woefully shut the door, and the loud clang of wood to frame reverberated within the whole room. The room was empty again, having nothing. Nothing but a shameful little creature. So there was nothing.

Minutes passed, and a tender, gentle knock came from the other side of the door. “Is anyone awake in there?” came the mature and maternal voice of Moominmamma. Snufkin refused to open his mouth. His voice was robbed, and all he could do was weep with no volume from his vocal chords. It was a good thing then that Mamma was insistent enough with the kindness she showed to her guess that she opened the door if there was no response.

“Oh there you are, Snufkin! I’m so glad you’re awake. I thought I might treat you to some tea and porridge, if you’re able to get it down.” Mamma brought the tray in as she spoke, and she kept it perfectly balanced as she removed both the glass and the lantern from the bedside table. After placing down the tray, she pulled out a stool and sat next to him. She gave him a kind smile that she hoped to put him at ease. All it did was break him down further. His brain was just so cloudy that he could not thank her, as much as he wanted to. 

“Are you feeling any better this morning?” Mamma asked him while tucking in the sheets of the bed. The ambience within the room was somber, but she refused to acknowledge it. Instead, she went on about her way. It was no use trying to add to the misery in the room. Now it was time to pull Snufkin into the light, no matter how he resisted. What mattered to her was his health and well being.

“Moomin was very angry with me,” was all Snufkin could really say. There was still a small bit of his pride that wouldn’t let him verbally admit that Moomin was right. Mamma hummed and poured a cup of tea from the teapot as she spoke.

“He was concerned, dear. And so were we. You can’t begrudge us a little bit of concern.” Snufkin shied away, feeling that her concern was misplaced and her sentiment was alien. There was no point melting in her warmth when he could still feel the cold shoulder of Moomin. 

“He said we might not be friends anymore.” It was at that point when Snufkin stopped feeling welcome in the house. It was a lingering feeling ever since the door was closed, but now he knew he could not take up space here. Moominmamma shouldn’t even be worried about him. He was a stranger in someone else’s home. He was just a vagabond who happened to grow roots, after all. The best he could owe her was a tip of the hat and a thank you for the hospitality before leaving and never seeing her again. 

“I don’t think that may be the case,” she replied, in all her sagely wisdom. “But he needs time to heal from this. And so do you.” Mamma took the cup of tea that she had prepared and handed it to Snufkin on a saucer with adoration in her emerald eyes. Seeing her insistent glance made him feel rotten to the core, in a completely new way. Here she was, offering her care and support, and he was too wrapped up in his own pity to notice. He could not hurt anyone like that anymore. As much as he felt that Mamma was worried about the wrong person, he could not spurn her as rudely as he did everyone else the night before.

Snufkin took the tea with meek paws. His body still twitched, but he tried to keep it steady. It would be an insult to Mamma to drop the tea on his person. The teacup was dainty and green with pink flowers painted on its surfaces. He sniffed at the tea, and he could tell right away that it was green tea that Mamma used. He also detected a hint of ginger in the aroma of the tea, and his muscles relaxed to compromise on him ingesting the tea itself.

Very gradually he poured the tea down past his tongue. The heat of the water barely singed his tongue, but once it cooled in his mouth, he hummed at the flavours. The spice of the garlic overtook the bitterness of the tea leaves, and left only a profile of ginger, mixed with an earthy essence that tasted of serenity. The ginger awakened his sore muscles, and eased the tension in his posture. The tea glided down his throat, and his brain was starting to focus more on savouring Mamma’s brew of ingredients than the stomach turning fear that he was losing his best friend.

“Yes, I will admit it may not have been the wisest decision to take something that could have done all that to you, but if you need help, reach out. You should stop treating people like they are your enemies or that they care about you for no reason. Moomin really does like you a lot, so I understand why he feels hurt when you don’t trust him.” Snufkin took in a sip of tea as Mamma said this, and swallowed it down quickly to respond.

“I trust him, I do.”

Mamma was silent for a moment, contrasting against Snufkin’s speedy response. “Maybe you should give yourself some time to think about whether or not that’s true.”

Snufkin placed the tea down on the bedside table. 

In the chilly autumn air outside, birds were calling to each other. They knew they would be leaving the valley soon for warmer climes. The sun offered little for the trees that were starting to wilt and drop their auburn leaves. The fish in the river were swimming downstream, and one or two would jump and break the surface with the sun glistening off its scales. Creatures and creepers crawled out from their knotholes or under the roots of trees, ready to rummage for food in preparation for hibernation. The tepid sea drifted over rocks and took loose pebbles with its hands. The Lonely Mountains stood proud, far away from it all, covered with morning fog.

It was just another day in Moominvalley.

**Author's Note:**

> hot damn this was a long one. it honestly started as just a snufkin drug trip, kinda like something from bojack horseman. but i think what made me keep writing were comments i see a lot when it comes to hallucinogens: it’s not as bad as other drugs because it doesn’t physically hurt. and i’ll be honest. i disagree. hallucinogens can hurt your brain. at its worst it can cause paranoia and psychosis, and that shit doesn’t just go away. i’m not trying to be a fear monger with this. after all, not every trip is a bad one. but to say that hallucinogens can’t hurt you is facetious and frankly dangerous. and i certainly hope i was able to treat this scenario with the gravity that it warranted.
> 
> once again, stay safe everyone.


End file.
